The Prayer Method reversed.
43
date of this decree rain does not fall abundantly, no one will go to mass
or say prayers.
"Article 2. If the drougth continues eight days more, the churches and
chapels shall be burned, and missals, rosaries, and other objects of devo
tion will be destroyed.
"Article 3. If, finally, in a third period of eight days it shall not rain,
all the priests, friars, nuns, and saints, male and female, will be beheaded.
And for the present permission is given for the commission of all sorts of
sin, in order that the Supreme Creator may understand with whom he
has to deal."
The most remarkable feature of this affair is the fact that four days
after these resolutions were passed the heaviest rainfall known for years
was precipitated on the burning community.
II. FOLK-LORE REMNANTS.*
Among the many curious remnants of folk-lore which we find
in connection with the subject of weather making none is more
curious than the idea that birds " call for rain."
Whenever this
expression is used the evident intention is, as is well known to
those who are familiar with this mode of speech, to express the
idea that they demand the rain, and that rain is likely to follow
because of this demand. For instance, the call of the robin,
heard so frequently, is interpreted to mean, " Bring out your
skillet, bring out your skillet, the rain will fill it."
In popular
estimation this is a "call for rain."
This association with our
American robin is very general. In Maine and Massachusetts
they are said to "sing for rain" (Miss F. D. Bergen). The
American quail is also said to " call for rain," and its crr is in
terpreted to be, " More wet, more wet" (Dr Robert Fletcher).
The call of the loon is given the same meaning in so widely
separated localities as Cape Breton, the state of Washington, and
Florida (Mr C. A. Smith). The same power is attributed, gener
ally in the Old World, to many other birds, as ducks, geese,
crows and ravens. From Pennsylvania (William Schrock) comes
the quaint conception expressed in the following rhyme:
The goose and the gander
Begin to meander;
The matter is plain,
They are dancing for rain.
*This series of associations of natural objects with weather-making, in
the sense of a weather fetich-a weather maker, not simply a weather
forecaster-is taken from the collections of weather proverbs made by the
Signal Service and Weather Bureau.
7-NAT. GEOQ. MAG., VOL.VI, 1894.